The Aniene river: challenges for a new concept of connection between Rome and Tivoli.

Latest territorial government tools have set the planning of green infrastructure with the aim to preserve the natural character and to stimulate regeneration processes of public open spaces and social cohesion, especially in peri-urban areas, where suburbs are melted with agricultural and natural landscapes and along the rivers, often neglected.
In this perspective, green open spaces can be perceived as "places-laboratory of new productive relations and territorial uses between cities and rural areas, which are able to return to a new centrality in economic, productive, environmental, countryside, recreational, social cultures, to build self-sustainable local development models" (Magnaghi, 2012).
This contribution will investigate the Aniene river, which links the eastern suburbs of Rome to the town of Tivoli, as a Green Infrastructure capable of restoring continuity to the ecological and functional fragmentation of landscapes between Rome and Tivoli, heavily compromised by human and productive pressures.
The City of Tivoli, which is actually on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites, has experiences through the centuries a mutual interdependence, physical and economical, to Rome marked by the Aniene river and the Tiburtina consular road. During the last decades, the peri-urbanization and industrialization phenomena ignored the river basin which has, along the river, abandoned sites and brownfields, examples of industrial archeology, illegal settlements whereas the open space is abandoned or is illegally occupied by warehouses or junkyards.
All over Europe, the River Contracts (Directive 2000/60/EC) have become effective tools in order to implement “a system of rules in which the criteria of public utilities, economic profitability, social value and environmental awareness are equally involved in the search for effective solutions” (The 2000 World Water Forum). In this direction, the Aniene River Contract is expected to enhance participation of the general public and encourage specific public and private actions. The Aniene River Contract, currently being defined, aims to protect natural and water environments, prevent flood risk and enhance the Agro-romano landscape.
The paper would, then, investigate the potential role that the Aniene river with its River Contract and other levels of regional planning, could play in a green infrastructure strategy and their benefits for Tivoli and Rome.
Our study relies on two distinct approaches:
1) historical documentation of water systems management, in order to secure the manifold uses and perceptions of the Aniene River and its basin over time;
2) in depth analysis of planning tools dealing with multifaceted aspects of land uses and landscapes along the river.
Our results will contribute to offering new insights towards a useful system of practical rules in order to provide contents to the Contract of River Aniene.